“Apple shares closed Tuesday at $100.53, surpassing their record achieved in September 2012,” Steven Russolillo reports for The Wall Street Journal. “Back then, Apple hit a closing high of $702.10, the equivalent of $100.30 in today’s split-adjusted terms.”
“A long-term look at Apple’s performance shows some staggering results,” Russolillo reports. “As Google Inc. on Tuesday celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the day it went public, Apple’s share performance had far exceeded the Internet search giant.”
“Over the past 10 years, Apple’s stock is up 4,419% through Monday’s close (the stock traded at $2.19 on a split-adjusted basis exactly a decade ago), according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. That makes it the fourth-best performer in the S&P 500 over the past decade. By comparison, Google is up 1,294% over that time frame,” Russolillo reports. “As of Monday, a $10,000 investment in Apple 10 years ago would be worth $456,347.03 today.”
Read more in the full article here.
> Over the past 10 years, Apple’s stock is up 4,419% … a $10,000 investment in Apple 10 years ago would be worth $456,347.03 today.
According to my brokerage account, some of my AAPL shares (the ones purchased more than 10 years ago) are up 5,067% as of today. It’s the ONLY time I’ve made even 5x on an specific investment, and this is 50x (not counting the recent dividends). Unfortunately, my initial investment was significantly “less than” $10,000.
Wall Street has a habit of being extremely lazy and incompetent when it comes to doing their job. It is obviously simple for the uninformed to compare Apple to Google for the sake of comparison but for Wall Street to continuously do this is shameful. In their operations and what they make, one could not find two companies more diverse and unique.
In terms of net worth: stock price; PE ratio; net profit and etc… they are even more diverse. In one teaspoon-full, Apple is capable of not just eating up Google and spitting them out but they are also capable of buying them 50% cash and 50% stock and still having billions of dollars sitting in the bank.
Wall Street, please let’s drop the in-educated Apple vs Google comparisons and let’s be more honest.
Your muscle flex will soon be challenged by a US economic disaster whilst Google will survive given their incredible worldwide reach Apple fans are too funny! Google’s Goodwill alone adds 150 billion to their book value.
Hmmm. yes I heard about that. Was that not to happen at the end of 2012?
I keep hearing of the end of the world, end of what ever…. except for “end of the….. ” stories.
Just saying. LOL
How is this relevant? 40+ year old Apple Vs 17 year old Google with Apple holding back dividends for 20+ years renders this article moot. Apple has a lot more to worry about than Google.
Actually, quite the opposite. According to common sense, a 17 year old Google should still be a growth stock, almost a start-up, while a 40 year old Apple is a mature company where rapid growth should have been finished long ago (look at other older tech stocks from that time: Compaq, DELL, Microsoft, DEC, Sun…). All these companies from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s have long finished their phase of rapid growth and are either mature companies with slow growth, or have already been acquired, merged, consolidated (or shut down and given money back to the shareholders…).
Ten years ago, Google was only 7 years old. It was supposed to be in the rapid growth phase (and it was). At that point, Apple was already 30 years old, and its growth and decline was even at that time the story of Silicon Valley legends.
The growth of AAPL during last ten years is unique in the history of world business. No other company has ever done what Apple has done over last ten years.
The article has a very valid and strong point.
Google has been a publicly traded company for 10 years, not 17.
Google has a huge growth potential open to it.
so does Apple. They are mutually exclusive.
Have to go along with Predrag here. Google is making a ton of money thru Apple and iOS devices these days. Android, not so much.
Apple is in the process of cutting Googles profit thru Apple with Siri etc.
Android is being pushed around by china copies that do not use google ads,
Google is on tippy ground if you ask me.
Just saying.
But the company has been in existence for about 17 years. Not to mention that the argument is even stronger if we look at just those ten years — one would expect a fresh IPO for a most successful search company would make it the most rapid growing stock (especially compared to a 40-year old tech company).
It is still an apples versus oranges (pun intended) comparison. Apple is an electronics hardware company with a long-established, obvious business model that has been in place ever since Philco was selling transistor radios. By contrast, Google is an Internet search company. Not only did such beasts not even exist until 1994 (when Yahoo invented it) but monetizing Internet search via ads is much harder and brings much smaller margins. Google doesn’t sell tangible things, widgets. They don’t even sell software. They are entirely a services company, and their being so profitable in that line of business is amazing, especially since Google doesn’t really emphasize enterprise services like a lot of their competitors do.
And sure, comparing Apple to Compaq, Dell, DEC, Sun etc. is fine, but Google is even more impressive. The reason is that Apple still has PLENTY of competition in its hardware space. Other very profitable companies make PCs, and similarly there are a number of smart phone and tablet makers. Apple doesn’t have much competition in the MP3 player space specifically, but there are plenty of other audio hardware companies, which Apple will now be competing with by buying Beats.
By contrast, Google is the only Internet search company left. Yahoo? Not only are they in a very long death spiral, but “Yahoo Search” is now actually powered by Google, meaning that Google makes more money from Yahoo search than Yahoo does. Yahoo is now trying things like developing Android apps to create new lines of business. But at least Yahoo is still around. America Online? Lycos? Alta Vista? Webcrawler? InfoSeek?Magellan? Dogpile? HotBot? All dead or dying. MSN Search/Bing? Still alive only because Microsoft is willing to lose billions on it.
So not only has Google experienced phenomenal growth, but in their sector, they are the last real player standing with no real competition that actually makes a profit (unless you count Yahoo, who again is Google’s #1 paying customer).
Not only that, but Google does have significant room for growth. First, they are soon going to become one of the country’s leading Internet providers, a feat that they can accomplish thanks to their massive networking and server infrastructure. (Growing this infrastructure is a major factor in keeping Google’s profits down by the way.) They are also bringing Internet services to developing countries, and in many cases will be the only Internet provider. And this is a bigger deal that you realize: because Google will be delivering the Internet at such high speeds, content currently delivered in other ways (think cable TV, telephone) are going to switch to Google’s fiber. The only thing holding it back currently is government regulation (via lobbyists from those existing companies) as well as resistance from current content owners (who again have contracts with those existing companies).
Google hasn’t really promoted itself as a major cloud player – at least not directly – the way that Amazon and Microsoft have, but if they wanted or needed to, they have the infrastructure and know-how to become a leading company racking in billions in profits at any time. The same with the enterprise: Google hasn’t made courting enterprise a priority (just as Apple did not for decades) but if they did, they could offer A) business Internet, B) cloud, C) software solutions etc.
And finally, yes there is Android. It took several years, as first Android devices had to gain market share (which happened in 2011-2012) and then its users needed to start buying apps and getting on the Internet (which happened in 2013). But now, Google’s profits from Google Play alone is exploding as Android users in developing countries are buying apps. Sure, they are mostly 99 cent apps and freemium apps, but when you consider Android’s massive install base, they only need the average Android user to spend a few dollars for billions in revenue. But it is only revenue you say? That is the best part. Since Google does not actually make the hardware itself, pretty much their only expense is from developing the software. So while the Samsung Galaxy S5 is a failure for Samsung (for example) because they did not make enough money to cover their R&D, manufacturing, distribution and marketing costs, the phones that did sell made money for Google with each download of Angry Birds. Samsung losing market share to Lenovo, Asus, Acer, HTC, Sony, LG and Huwaei in Asia, Europe, Latin America etc.? Again, not Google’s problem because it doesn’t matter to them who made the phones that access the Google Play Store. And Google Play is merely one way that Google monetizes Android. Their main way is actually data collection, and there is also search. Their investment in Android is only beginning to pay off, and check and see how much money it rakes in 3 years from now if they can maintain their 85% market share (and there is no reason why they won’t, especially since their Android One program will result in even more Android phones being sold in developing and even third world countries).
So the analysts may not be completely wrong. You have Apple’s profitability TODAY based on the iPhone (invented in 2007) and iPad (invented in 2010) versus the things that will start bringing in major money for Google 5-10 years from now. So you aren’t going to ever buy an Android phone or tablet or a Chromebook. Big deal. Soon you will be using Google Fiber for your Internet, cable and voice, meaning that Google will still be making a ton of money off you anyway. So let us revisit this article 5 years from now, especially if Apple is unable to create another phenomenon like the iPhone.
Yahoo did not invent the search engine.